Abstract
This chapter discusses the saliernce of race at the symbolic level and, more specifically, in the auditory domain, analysing its role in the negotiation of identities. In particular, it examines how students attribute meanings to race and racial identities in relation to their everyday practices and interactions on Rhodes University campus in Grahamstown, in the Province of the Eastern Cape. It firstly introduces a postcolonial aural theory of race and its relevance for ethnographic work. Secondly, it discussed how the persistence of racial segregation is mirrored by racial formations at the symbolic level. Drawing on a case study of the Rhodes University Chamber Choir, it then illustrates how the process of Othering through the juxtaposition of musical repertoires reinforces the idea of a correspondence between culture, ethnicity and race. Finally, based on the same case study, it illustrates how a multiracial group of students and choir singers articulates political dynamics of race and renegotiate spaces of power by taking advantage of the polysemic character of music, thus challenging White cultural hegemony and the rhetoric of reconciliation that often legitimises it.